Husband is Gone Part Two

19 years ago

So, I spent one day going through things. I was on a roll.

Not any longer. Two kids sick. Sick enough to wake me up with 104 temps in the night. Drug them to urgent care this morning. Nothing to do for them but give them OTC and love.

Little girl MIGHT be getting an ear infection but maybe not. Little boy just sickly. Sigh.

I have spent the past day and a half waiting after them. The baby is fussy since he's being ignored. Sigh.

It is late but I was determined to clean out at least one more kitchen cupboard. Did it! But did I get rid of the pasta machine? Nope. I decided I have room to keep it and until I want something else, it is fine where it is.

Total count to date-

Five empty boxes by the curb for garbage man. Three bags of garbage ready for garbage man. Seven big black bags of 'stuff' ready to go to Goodwill. And several small bags.

There really is not much more in my house to work through. My study is cleaned and organized as much as possible at this time. Kids room has space for Christmas gifts they will recieve. I have even sorted photos and put them in scrapbooks.

What is left is my closet. Buck me up. It desperately needs to be gone through and cleaned out and organized and and and...

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Comments (10)

intherain
19 years ago
Oh, Ginger! It doesn't seem fair that you have sick kids while your husband is gone! Hopefully when you all wake up in the morning, kids will be better and you can get to...THE CLOSET. I felt SO GOOD when I got our closet cleaned out. I've managed to keep it relatively clean for over a month now. I hope you'll be able to get to yours before your husband returns. Here's to good health in your family!

Sheryl
talley_sue_nyc
19 years ago
go get 'em, Tiger! You can do that closet--it'll be SO much easier than you think. In fact, I bet you'll find that dreading it was worse than actually doing it.

Now, *my* closet.....

I need KIDS to be gone, if I'm gonna accomplish anything!

Sounds like progress--and a good call on the pasta machine.
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You've already done good! My DH was gone a week ago for a week, and I really got into cleaning out his piles for the first 2 days, then life got in the way. I knew it would, that's why I was a little obsessed the first few days. But I spent 1 week with the DR table cleaned off. I put flowers on it, hoping DH would notice and TRY to keep it neat when he got back. No go. It's a mess again. Oh, well. What is left of his piles are boxed up and sorted into categories for him to go through. He keeps saying he will, but hasn't touched them yet. But I have taken a pile out here and there and said do you need these old receipts, etc.? Nope - out they went immediately. So I'm hoping the rest of the box will be emptied soon. Obviously he doesn't miss any of it. But back to the point - I think that if you get one or two good days of cleaning out at once, that is all you can ask for :) Good job on what you've done! And I hope the kids fell better soon. Ear infections are really hard to take - they make you feel so helpless as a parent!
kittiemom
19 years ago
Ginger, you've made a lot of progress! I know you can get that closet cleaned out. You have several more days before your DH comes home. I hope the kids feel better soon so you can tackle this project.

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intherain
19 years ago
Ginger, update us! Did you get to the closet????
apoem
Original Author
19 years ago
Ok- here is my update:
it's 12 midnight and I'm tired.

But more importantly here is the deal on the closet.
When my kids put on a shirt or a pair of pants, whatever, and it's too small they throw it in my closet. In my closet I have a dirty clothes hamper for too small clothes. The idea is that I will pack up the clothes as the hamper gets filled. The reality is I dn't. So as you can imagine, the bottom of my closet quickly gets covered with kids clothes.

Also, this is the biggest piece of storage area in my house. I really don't have closets, except for the ones in the rooms in my house. We have built storage where we can but there just isn't much storage area. So whenever anything comes up that I need to hang on to for a while but don't need it right now- it goes in my closet.

And my closet just gets worse. With my saver husband and the way we use this closet- my closet is out of control.

I wish I had taken pictures of it before. Yup! Before! I did work on it! I have used nap times and night times like this to do it. I just started going through one box and then another and then my clothes etc.

End result- the clothes on the floor that are too small for the kids is still there. However, I managed to repack two boxes my husband had into one smaller box. Didn't get rid of anythign but reciepts that were more than two years old. The rest just went into the one box. Mostly he had just two boxes horribly and I was able to repack and compact it to one. I have empty space on my shelves. And that is after I put all my shoes in plastic shoe boxes and put them up on the shelves.

I took out a total of 3 bags of garbage. It sounds bad but remember please that there were shoe boxes and other boxes that I didn't stomp down- just threw them in the garbage bag. I also took out 3 or 4 smaller garbage bags of stuff to goodwill.

I have empty space!!! Thanks to you ladies!

Here is what I have left to do:
1- take my Christmas Sunday school lesson (which is a bunch of manipulative toys to teach the Christmas story in a different way) and organize that out with my lesson plan, and put it back in my closet somewhere out of the way but easily got to come Dec.

2. Pack up all the small clothes and put them in the garage for future boy clothes (for the baby boy to wear) or in the garage sale (girl clothes).

That is it. And if it doesn't get done then I'm ok with that too. It looks so much better already.

Overall today I took 8 bags of stuff to goodwill and several boxes also. I have also taken out 7 to 9 bags of garbage from this house. Now if I could just get some of that furniture under control and get rid of it. Or a house addition.

G
intherain
19 years ago
Ginger, even though we *do* have a bit more storage, everything still seems to end up in our closet. Can't find a spot? Put it in Mom and Dad's closet! I was so proud of my closet after I cleaned it last month, and I realized today that it is headed back into the same sorry state it was in a month ago. So it's on my to-do list to do a quick pick-up in there before it once again gets out of control.

Sheryl
talley_sue_nyc
19 years ago
Oh, Sheryl, that's me completely!

Can't find a spot? Put it in Mom *or* Dad's closet! So we have 2 of them. Fortunately, I only pay attention to mine; he's in charge of his.

Good luck w/ that quick pick-up.
breenthumb
19 years ago
I can do you one better than Mom & Dad's closet. How about finding clean folded clothes back down the laundry shute! I'll bet my youngest was about ten, and I was beside myself taking care of sick elderly parents plus both our homes. I marched both girls down to the basement and taught them how to use the "equal opportunity washer and dryer". They caught on fast! Sandy
intherain
19 years ago
Ooooh, Sandy, that would have made me mad! I also love it when one of my kids tells me they need a certain outfit washed and dried by the following day. Next thing they know, they are collecting an ENTIRE basket of dirty clothes (because we do NOT run a washer just for one outfit) and doing the whole load themselves.

Sheryl

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